by Ryder Stacy
“Where is my crown?” Stafford said, annoyed. He sat down. His personal servant Mannerly came running with the vermilion pillow upon which rested the newly constructed crown. The only model the craftsmen had for such a thing was an old wallet-sized depiction of Jesus, who was reputed to be, by legend, some sort of king. They had thus constructed the gold and jewel crown in the shape of a crown of thorns, and realizing it would be difficult to wear, had lined the sharper points with plastic buttons. It gleamed in the spotlight also.
“Crown me, Mannerly,” Stafford said.
The bleating of the maniac brass reached new heights of shrilldom as the servant leaned over and did just that. The coronation was over.
Nobody knew what to do, they all waited for their new king to tell them. But he just sat there smiling. Several of the orchestra players—all rather pale and emaciated—collapsed, noses and lips bleeding from the strain of their frantic playing.
Finally, as the wind went out of more and more of the mad musicians, until only a whimpering trumpet carried on, Stafford arose. He lifted his hand in a blessing and said, “From this day forth it is retroactively illegal to have disagreed with me. Treasonable thoughts are illegal, and any opposition is treason, punishable by death. Amen.”
“Amen,” yelled the populace.
“We tried democracy and it just didn’t work,” said Stafford, once the amens had died down. “It is time for the entertainment I promised you all. Let the executions begin.”
In his cell, Tab Subscript had heard the orchestra, the cheering, and the bellowing voice of his enemy Stafford on the microphone. One of the executions Stafford had spoken of was probably Subscript’s, he realized with apprehension. He had spoken out against Stafford’s plan to seal Eden off from the outside world. And for that he must die.
If only, he thought, hitting his puny fist against the cold steel bars, if only I had left with Danik and Dutil and the others. If only I had risked the dangers of the surface—rather than remaining behind. Oh, people in the resistance thought he had stayed behind out of a sense of duty, out of the desire to rally a counter-force to Stafford. But the fact was he had stayed behind because he was afraid of what lay out there.
If only Danik and his men would return with the help they believed they could get on the surface. Of course it was only a theory, a pipe dream, that Danik had. He said men walked up there, not monsters. He said that the surface people would be civilized, that he could bring some back to convince the unconvinced to open up Eden to the light and fresh air above. But the weeks went by and Dutil had failed to return from the surface. Then, Stafford’s Civil Guard had begun rounding up all dissidents, ferreting them out of their jobs in the offices and factories of Eden, sometimes tearing their bedsheets off their cringing bodies in the middle of the night. Tyranny had come to Eden. And terror.
The large minority—about forty percent of the population—that had supported Stafford in the beginning had now dwindled to a few percent. But everybody was scared. Especially since the alterations at the planetarium. Once a place of rest and renewal under the artificial stars, the planetarium had become something horrible, something unknown but horrible after Stafford altered it. All that Subscript knew about those alterations were the results. Those persons arrested for violation of the new edicts would go in, and after a long while there would be screaming. And then no one would come out. No bodies, no bones—nothing.
And those new edicts. They were the sure sign that Stafford was a madman.
Edict Number One—promulgated just two weeks earlier—stated that all persons caught congregating without a permit would be subject to arrest.
Edict Number Two enlarged the small Civil Guard, previously just ceremonial soldiers stationed in front of Government Building, into a force of five thousand. This was to enforce Edict Number One.
Edict Number Three was the elimination of Time itself. This wasn’t that impossible in Eden. For the “sun” above was stationary and constant. To remove all clocks, as Stafford ordered, effectively ended time. Stafford decided what time it was, and announced it whenever he chose to over the central P.A. system connected to his newly refurbished office.
Edict Number Four abolished democracy—if he hadn’t done so already—and made Eden a kingdom.
And now Edict Number Five. The retroactive edict. All who opposed Stafford were retroactively guilty of treason.
And now the executions.
Subscript heard the heavy booted feet of the guards coming for him. He cringed, whimpered, for he was not strong and brave like Dutil. No, he would cry and scream and beg—no, no he would not.
“Your time has come to die, traitor,” said the burly guard. Subscript knew that face and thick body anywhere—the head of the Civil Patrol the meanest, most dangerous man in Eden—Bdos Err. Chief of the terror. “Come with us.” Subscript was savagely brought to his feet by the heavy hands of the guard and shoved out of the cell. There was no place to run, no place to hide. He determined to face his death—probably at the scaffolds he had seen being constructed outside the Government Building shortly before he was arrested a few day earlier. Hanging—not a pleasant death.
Suprised at his own calmness he walked between the guards, head held high, toward his death. The populace stared and he heard mumbles of “must be very brave . . . damned cool traitor, isn’t he . . . see how brave he is . . .” and Subscript felt proud. He would perhaps make a speech as the rope was tightened to his neck. Yes. What were those words? Give me liberty or give me—
They reached the foot of the steps. He looked up at Stafford, said, “You may hang me but you have not scared me.”
“Who’s going to hang you, brother?” Stafford said with a wide smirk appearing on his thin lips. “Take him to the Planetarium.”
“The—the—planetarium?” Subscript stuttered. “N-no, not the planetarium . . . please . . . I beg you—” His knees felt weak, they collapsed under him. The guards dragged him whimpering away.
“Not the planetarium, oh please. God, not that . . . not the planetarium.”
“Let them hear the traitor cry and beg,” Stafford yelled. “Let them all know that the traitors are cowards, weak men. Let them all know that the planetarium awaits all who oppose me.”
Lowered eyes everywhere around the town square attested to the degree of fear that the new ruler had managed to inject into the day’s activities. “Now,” said Stafford, “let the hangings begin. The first hanging is of Ren Newname, for the crime of eating more than his quotient . . .”
The first of the regular criminals were brought forth, screaming and struggling, and placed upon the scaffold. Death would come to them, but only the traitors need fear the planetarium.
Bored eventually by the jerking bodies, which soon filled the six scaffolds, Stafford yawned. He said, “That will be all for today—everyone back to their jobs—and be very conscientious,” and went into the building behind the throne.
With his engineers he went over the drawings of the city. He pointed to the map of the Cave of Tombs, the cave where the honored dead of Eden lay at rest. It was higher than the rest of the complex. “Finish the shaft for the surface probe here.” He jabbed at the map . . . They nodded.
They trooped off to the work Stafford had assigned.
Stafford retired to his study, where he tried to watch a video tape. He soon drifted of to sleep, smiling. He was dreaming of firing the Factor Q canister up the shaft in the Hall of Tombs, forever ending the fractious demands of some Edenites to go up to the surface.
If the surface isn’t totally unlivable now, he smiled, it will soon be.
Twelve
Rockson and his companions had reached the approximate area of Yumak City. As a matter of fact, the sextant readings on the smeary sun low in the southwest indicated that they couldn’t be more than a mile from the city of five thousand. Where the hell was it? The coordinates that Rock had been given back in Century City were the coordinates the Yumak people themselves had gi
ven Rath. Was this some kind of sick joke? Bringing the Freefighters into the middle of nowhere?
There were some scraggly bushes around. Rockson saw nothing else. “Let’s take a break,” Rock said, down in the dumps. “Maybe when I have some tea I can find out what is going on here.”
They made a small fire with some twigs and McCaughlin brewed some tea in a bent metal pot. The dogs hunkered down to get some rest on the inch or so of snow. To them the just-above-freezing weather was a heat wave, and they liked to sleep through heat waves.
Rockson sat on a small boulder and sipped his mug of hot tea slowly. And then he heard Detroit exclaim, “Rockson, those bushes are—moving.”
As Rockson looked up, the bushes were thrown aside by laughing Indians of the Yumak tribe. The tallest of the bunch of camouflage experts walked toward Rockson, hand extended.
By their odd outfits, Rockson realized that these villagers must be related to the Crazy Alligator tribe he’d spent an uncomfortable visit with years ago. The Yumak were wearing moccasins—that’s how they’d sneaked up quietly. But that was about the only strictly Indian gear they wore.
The tall Indian, a hook-nosed man about seven one in height, shoot Rockson’s hand. “How,” he articulated, “are you?”
“Fine,” Rockson answered. “I’m glad to see you—I presume you’re Chief Smokestone?”
“Yes.”
The man was deep tan, bare-armed, ten or twelve red feathers in a headband. He wore a rawhide tasseled jacket, and a like pair of pants. All the material was covered with beadwork of blue and red, intricate scenes of fantastic birds and animals. He had a metal breastplate that seemed to be from a twentieth-century car. A hubcap that was shined to perfection. Its barely visible insignia said OLDSMOBILE. The man’s face was rugged, with deep-set dark eyes and high cheekbones. His muscled arms looked as full of sinewy strength as Rockson’s.
“Where did you put your city, Smokestone? Aren’t we near it?”
Smokestone laughed heartily. “You are less than a hundred meters from it. Come, you will see. But first may I introduce my son and nephew. Steelring and Wild Horse.”
The two braves approached and shook Rockson’s hand. They too had what appeared to be polished up ancient car hubcaps tied together as breast and shoulder plates. They had no feathers. Both looked around twenty, and strong. The two braves wore their hair in two pigtails. They had pants made of some sort of multicolored cloth that shimmered like the rainbow, and were bare chested. Wild Horse wore an armband that had a little naked plastic doll of the dime-store variety tied to it.
“You have some very interesting-looking sled dogs there,” Steelring said, pointing to the team that McCaughlin had driven to the spot.
“They’re not sled dogs, they’re sled wolf-dogs. And keep away from them, they bite.” McCaughlin said possessively.
“Well, what is it—do you want to leave them tied here? It would be hard to get the dogs down the cliff ladders.”
“Cliff ladders?”
“Yes. You see, it’s the only way to get down to our city. Maybe a look would be worth a thousand words. You can tie the dogs to that cactus over there.”
“Give the dogs a rest,” McCaughlin said. “They can use it.” Rockson agreed. “Tie them up here, we’ll come back for them—hopefully with some food—later.”
“Glad to meet you all,” Rockson muttered. “But we have to get some transportation from your tribe and move quickly, Smokestone. Please lead on to your—invisible—city.”
“This I’ve gotta see,” said McCaughlin, packing up the pot and cups and joining Rockson and the others in their walk across the barren plain with the chief and his two young relatives.
As they walked, mystified as to where they were headed, Rockson was asked by Smokestone if he knew Trickster Deity, leader of the Crazy Alligator tribe.
“Unfortunately I do, I spent some time with him and his tribe once. I give the experience mixed reviews.”
“I understand. He’s my distant cousin, but he’s sort of the black sheep of the family. Be careful now, walk slower all of you. Or you will fall into our beloved city.”
Rockson stopped when the chief put up his hand, and so did the others. “Golly,” McCaughlin said, “Will you have a look at that?”
Their feet were at the edge of a thousand-foot precipice. They were staring down into a circular hole in the ground about a hundred yards across. There were buildings, similar to Pueblo Indian cliff houses, carved into the opposite wall of the fantastic hole. And people were moving about the dwellings. Lots of people.
“We were afraid you would ride your odd-looking sleds right down into the abyss, so we three came up to greet you. Our remote-sensing devices—atop that mesa, the tall thin one about twelve miles backtracked some electronic device you have with you.”
Rockson turned to the Russian, fumed, “That’s it, Scheransky— You’re leaving that damned Schecter weather device here with the Yumaks.”
Rona changed the subject: “Chief, did your people always live out here?”
“My ancestors were urban Indians. Los Angeles. When our vision-seekers saw the nuke war coming, they left the city, en masse, trekked to a cavern, a big one, exposed for the first time in thousands of years by the nuke quakes. Some of us stayed there. Others thought living in a big cave was spooky so we went south. And here we are. We found this swell place. It used to belong to the ancient Anasazi Indians. They built most of the place, we just improved it.”
Smokestone was the first to start descending, using barely visible footholds in the rock as a ladder.
“Watch yourself now, friends,” he cautioned, “be sure to place your feet in the same places I do. There’s food and drink aplenty awaiting you—and some excellent motorcycles for continuing your mission.”
Rock was second to begin descending. The footholds and hand niches were adequate, but he couldn’t talk, he had to concentrate so carefully to make it. He wondered how the heck they got motorcycles up and down the canyon. Then he saw a rope device—some sort of elevator—far across the circular structure, near the houses. A platform of bent and shaped wood planks—more like a big basket without sides. Could that four-by-six basket on thin ropes hold a Harley?
Once they all descended, they were invited into a sandstone dwelling, and Indian maidens brought water and food. “This is wonderful,” exclaimed Danik. “But we must not tarry.”
Later, while the others were received by a group of high tribal officials, the chief took Rockson on a brief tour. From the erudite quality of the conversation, it soon became evident that Smokestone was a remarkable and educated man.
His house was highest on the cliff, accessed, Rock was happy to discover, by a series of sturdy ladders. They went up.
The home of the chief was most remarkable. Like the other dwellings it was a Pueblo-style, and bare of adornment, or even of glass in the windows. There was a fireplace, with a few embers being cared for by a pretty woman. There were bookcases—hundreds of shelves. All the classics—in five languages one could read Dickens, Cooper, Disney, Heinlein, and Proust—plus thousands of technical books dating from before World War Three. Rockson also found a newly bound twelve-volume History of the Southwestern Indians in the 20th and 21st Centuries by Chief Smokestone. “I am not finished with it,” Smokestone said, as Rockson removed one volume from the shelf and started thumbing through it.
“Quite impressive,” the Doomsday Warrior said.
“I am adding a volume,” said Smokestone, “so that people in the future will know of us, and of our ways. Perhaps it will help them. The air is very dry hereabouts, and the books keep well. But just in case I am having them all transferred to hard disk in our computer room.”
“It seems,” said Rockson, “that you have updated these ancient dwellings.”
“We do what we can,” Smokestone replied modestly. He showed the Doomsday Warrior more of the complex—cafeteria-style communal eating areas, gymnasiums with stone barbells, and
of course the computer room—deep in the interior of the living rock. Must have been hard carting it all down here.
After seeing all their progress Rockson was more than happy to retire to the Indian chief’s study and discuss their relative philosophies while the rest of the team looked around, led by eager Indian maidens, who expertly elucidated the many sights for them.
After inquiring about how Rockson’s trip had been so far, and Rockson saying “Not too bad” laconically, the subject got heady. As usual among men of learning, the discussion turned to the Great Nuclear War. And the usual Monday-morning quarterbacking got more intense than usual. The Indian chief insisted that if the Indians had run the world, the war would never have happened.
“Please explain that,” Rockson asked.
Smokestone had put on a softer loose shirt and lit up a pipe with a pungent tobacco. He offered Rockson some—there were many pipes—and Rockson accepted one. He puffed away too. They could, Rockson mused, be sitting in an ancient English mens’ club lined with books, and not in the middle of a primitive cliff dwelling in Arizona. Smokestone, between puffs of the stuff which tasted better than it smelled to Rockson, went on with his remarks.
“When the Indian nations owned America, they respected nature, worked with it. To us, to all the tribes, the earth was our mother. To dig up huge tracts of land with giant shovels was evil. Just as you cannot dig holes in your mother breasts with a knife—the Indian thought of the land as our mother. The land repaid us for our respect, and fed us, and the cycle of life was complete.
“Neither did the the Indians—the native Americans—consider the land dividable. We couldn’t own the land, instead it owned us. Our way was—and is—to walk with the beauty, to know that the spirit of land and sky and man are one whole. The white man lost that identification to the earth. They took away the soil, dug it up and refined it, made it into uranium, and then into thermonuclear bombs. To destroy themselves, and us, and the land and the air and water, in all the ten directions.
